LNIM107 Transcript: How To Finish The Year Strong in 2016

2016 is almost gone, but let me tell you something. If you’re like me, there’s a bunch of stuff that you set out to do that you just haven’t gotten done. Either your eyes were bigger than your stomach or you didn’t follow through, or you didn’t really stay connected with why you were doing what you were doing and you got lost along the way, or you were distracted by bright shiny objects, squirrels, or whatever it is that distracts you. For my little puppy dog Bella it’s squirrels. We go out for a walk and she does great until she sees a squirrel and then she’s off to the races.

It’s understandable, but the one thing that you have to recognize is that you have a lot of year left. It’s still only 75% cooked. We have October, November, and December to really get after it. One of the things we’re going to talk about in this episode is how to do that. Before we do that, I want to talk about a couple of news items that are out there.

This Week in Internet Marketing News

Last week we talked about the chatter around the Google algorithm update. It looks like there’s still some stuff changing. Some signals intensified this week and there was some indication that there are still more fluctuations in Google that haven’t settled yet. Very interesting.

As expected, Google’s public relations team wouldn’t directly comment. They pointed to a tweet from this guy John Mueller, he’s from Google, where he says there’s nothing specific going on, he says, “Sorry. We’re always working to improve things,” etcetera. It goes back to what I told you, they make 500+ changes a day.

But it still looks like there is some movement going on. I’ve certainly seen some movement in a couple of my sites. Some in the up direction. A couple of cases pretty dramatically in the down direction as they continue to change things on some older sites where I’ve had less than savory linking profiles and stuff was still hanging on.

So I really do think there are some changes out there. Nothing to worry about. My advice is still the same; write fantastic content for readers and do more and more work just to ignore Google all together. It seems like the more you ignore them and instead put that energy into creating great content the better off you are in the long run.

I can’t tell you how many sites I’ve built with these kind of spotty techniques over the years that are now in the graveyard. You don’t want to make that mistake, let me make that for you. Put your energy into great content and don’t worry so much about Google algorithms.

I also have a little something in the personal news. I don’t know if you guys know this, but my buddy Andrew Hansen who has been on the show several times has a new podcast up and running over at AndrewHansen.name. I’m actually going to be on the next episode of that podcast. When that comes out I will point you to it.

Andrew is also rereleasing this amazing course that I personally went through, I guess that was in March and April, called Constant Profits Club. One of the interesting things about Constant Profits Club is that it has a component built into it where people who want to start making money right away so that they can finance their efforts have a mechanism to do this because the first part of the course teaches writing and it teaches you how to sell that writing to other bloggers who might need writing done for them and how to use those marketplaces.

It’s a really powerful idea, because in order to do affiliate marketing you need to create content, you need to be good at that. The idea in Constant Profits Club is if you’re going to need to do that anyway let’s do that first and teach you how to sell it so that when you’re in the business of trying to wait the long time to get your affiliate site up and running for commissions you can use some of your waiting time, spare time, or other time to write content for other people and actually get some cash flow going for your little side business or your first internet marketing adventure.

That’s a big deal for a lot of people. On several levels it’s very exciting. I think the most important level is on a psychological level, it gives you that first win. I think anytime you’re trying to do something if you can get some early wins that can give you the vision and clarity that you need to be successful in the long haul.

It also has the benefit of actually being able to help you fund the creation of some kind of more substantial affiliate marketing website, because you might wish to outsource some link building and make other kinds of investment in your site. Sometimes it can be hard to put money in on something you’re not really sure about, but if you’re making money from your internet marketing work by creating content for other people that can make it a little easier, sometimes even possible, for the people that are taking this course to try to find their adventure.

Then it also just helps people to pay for the course. The course is not inexpensive, those of you that know about this course have realized that, but it is an incredibly value packed course that I highly recommend.

It turns out that in the last round of the course there were some amazing success stories. Andrew is going to cover some of those amazing stories on a webinar on Thursday 29th. If you’re hearing this in time, I think it might be worth your time to listen to it just to hear what is possible.

I can tell you I was in the course, I know the people that Andrew is talking about in general. I participated quite extensively in the online Facebook group and went through all of the course material. This is for real. You can listen to the webinar and you can rest assured that everything you hear on there is actually true. I know the people involved and it’s an interesting thing to be able to say that.

If you want to see something inspiring, I think it might be worth your time. You can check that out over at LateNightIM.com/cpc if you’re interested in hearing what’s possible. Hopefully there will be information there about a replay. If there is other information I can give you about a replay, I will let you know as soon as that’s available.

Of course at the end of the webinar I would suspect Andrew will sell the course. If you decide to buy the course, I will get an affiliate commission for that. But I don’t think that’s the reason to go to the webinar. I think the reason to go to the webinar is to hear some cool stories about what people are able to accomplish.

There are some pretty big businesses that have been built since April that will impress you. People essentially starting with very little and creating thousands of dollars a month in revenue, it’s pretty neat stuff.

Finishing the Year Strong

That gets us to the main segment today and what I want to talk about is finishing strong.

I was on a website called MindBodyGreen.com, extending the sports analogy here to this idea of finishing up the year strong and talking about Super Bowl 42 the Giants executed a two minute drill. You know in football when it’s the end of the game they throw caution to the wind and go crazy, they throw deep passes and do whatever it takes to win because at that point they have nothing to lose. This two minute drill of heavy focused execution resulted in the game winning touchdown against the Patriots. The Giants ran 12 plays in two minutes and seven seconds, covering 80 yards, which is almost the whole length of the field, and they finished strong and secured the win.

I guess the question is what is your two minute drill going to be for 2016? We still have three months left and we shouldn’t waste them. I think the tendency is to think, “I didn’t accomplish what I wanted to accomplish this year, oh woe is me, I guess I’ll just wait until next year and start fresh after the 1st of the year. I’ll just coast through the rest of this year and be done with it.” I think that’s a huge mistake.

I think it’s great to look forward to next year, but why not hit next year with a running start and just absolutely crush it between now and the end of the year. I think that can make a huge difference for your 2017. Also, if you allow yourself, you’re going to be able to get some amazing stuff accomplished by the end of the year and maybe while some of your competition is kind of fading out you can be accelerating. That could be a really good thing.

Here are some tips for finishing strong for the rest of 2016 that I hope will motivate you to do some amazing things.

Number one, totally forgive yourself. There’s just not time. Ain’t nobody got time for all the recrimination and self-doubt and self-flagellation. You just have to forget that. Once you acknowledge where you are and own it, like we’re talking about right now, “I didn’t make it, I didn’t do what I said I was going to do,” it’s just time to move forward. We talked about that in the science of achievement stuff that we discussed a few weeks ago, like Cliff Ravenscraft was talking about. Just recognize it for what you are, but recognize that it’s not any worse than it actually is.

All we’re talking about here is nine months ago you said you were going to make some progress and you didn’t make all of the progress that you wanted to. Okay, that’s done. Now let’s make amazing progress in the next three months.

You have to forgive yourself and allow yourself to do number two, which is stop procrastinating. I think a lot of people around this time of year are thinking, “I’m so far behind that I can’t even start,” and so they are watching new episodes of NCIS.

That’s a huge trap right now, there are some really fantastic looking new shows coming on the networks. You have to ignore those. Stop procrastinating. Ignore the Fall television season. Ignore football as much as possible, if you’re here in the United States I know that’s very hard. Stop procrastinating and go do something about what it is that you need to get done.

I think one that you can do, and this is number three, is start small. Have some small wins. We were talking earlier about having small wins in Constant Profits Club. Have some small wins in your business.

Is there some stuff in your business that has been annoying you, that you don’t like to do, or that you’ve been dreading that has been helping you erect these procrastination barriers because you don’t want to deal with stuff? Maybe you have some emails in your inbox that you don’t want to answer or you have some stuff that’s just annoying you, a few easy unfinished tasks that you can knock out. Go get some small wins, get some of that stuff off your plate.

That stuff is sucking up your emotional energy that you’re going to need for strong finish. Make a resolution to just today, this week, to go out there and identify four or five things that are some quick wins that you can go do that fix some stuff that you’ve been wanting to fix. Maybe it’s even some stuff that’s fun for you. Get that done and have some small wins, remove some small annoyances.

The fourth thing that you can do is get your space clear. Maybe you have a lot of clutter on your hard drive, in your Evernote inbox, in your OmniFocus inbox, on your physical desk, in your mind, let’s clear that out and get focused on what we need to do for the rest of the year.

I think that’s absolutely number five. Once you’ve got your mind right and you’re ready to go, and you know that you’re going to make some amazing progress, you’ve already committed to this idea that you’re going to go do something great between now and the end of the year, let’s decide what it is. Reconnect with your goals and decide what you can own between now and the end of the year.

Be realistic. We know Christmas is coming up, we know Thanksgiving is coming up here in the United States, I’m sure there are end of year holidays and festivals coming up in whatever part of the world you happen to be in. Don’t let those be excuses, but make some realistic goals about what it is that you can actually do. Figure out what you want to between now and the end of the year, and then let’s go do it.

One of the ways you can go do it is item number six. Leverage your mentors, your support team, your mastermind groups, let them know what you’re doing. Tell them, “Hey guys, my year hasn’t been great and I didn’t do what I said I was going to do.”

I’ve shared with you that in my personal case I had some real life tragedies in my immediate family that derailed me even more than usual and really amplified this pattern of procrastination and stuff that I have in my life normally anyway, it really brought all that stuff to the surface.

Let them know that you’re doing that, that you’re owning that and that you’re going to restart and make some really great progress between now and the end of the year.

Once you’ve done that, amplify your opportunity for success by making some incremental increases in your health and fitness. That would be number seven. I know I’ve seen with my buddy Cliff, he’s just incredibly productive and energetic having made some amazing gains in physical fitness. Why not do that too?

I’m not saying that you have to go crazy like Cliff did and lose 4,700 pounds, or however much weight Cliff has lost, and workout for seven hours every day. It’s not like that, but from my perspective it seems like that. I’m not talking about making an amazing transformation, at least not to start. Why not commit to making a little transformation, like walking for 20 or 30 minutes every morning to get your brain going or something small? Something that you can do with a Fitbit, like committing to 10,000 steps per day, or with your Apple Watch or something like that.

Make a commitment to improve your fitness. Every piece of literature out there suggests that the little bit of time that you spend working harder to eat right and get a little bit of exercise will pay you great dividends back in your creativity and productivity, and you’re going to need that to really reenergize your goals between now and the end of the year.

The last thing is once you’ve owned this thing, you have people behind you, you have your scene together with your health and fitness, go work on a plan. Put together a plan. You had a plan at the beginning of the year. Take that plan and modify it, and recognize the fact that you have three months left.

Make it really simple. For me, one of my big plans for the beginning of the year that I didn’t execute to was this big content plan. I totally overcommitted with regard to content. I looked at that and said, “What’s the most important thing for me and Late Night Internet Marketing?” and I talked it over with my mentors in the Green Room Mastermind.

It was very clear that the most important thing for me was to get consistent with the podcast, make that the one thing. Then there are a few other things that come along behind that, that once the podcast is done there are a couple of other things that are really important in my business and I do those next. Make sure that gets done, and done very well, with intensity and integrity through the end of the year.

What are your one things that need to be done between now and the end of the year? What can you commit to getting done between now and the end of the year?

I talked about the podcast. The other big thing for me is this course on affiliate marketing that I’ve been talking about finishing for a long time now that people are waiting on. I’m working on those two things.

What are your things? You need to identify those and get working.

Now that we know what to do we need to get fired up. To fire you up I want to play you some audio from a video that Gary Vaynerchuck released a couple weeks ago. I’ve actually met Gary, he is an incredibly intense individual. He and I took a selfie together and I was having trouble fumbling with my camera, he took the camera away from me and took the selfie himself. This guy is super intense and highly motivated, a really interesting guy.

He and I use a different version of the English language, but I have edited this to take out some of his words that he chooses to use that I don’t use on my show, but I want you to hear this. This needs to be your mantra for what you do with the rest of 2016. Let’s hear what Gary has to say…

[Gary:]How many questions the same thing? Put out content, put out a great product, test things, try it all, use data, use your intuition. The one way not to do it is to watch my videos and read Seth Godin’s books and ponder and strategize and whiteboard all day and debate with your brother and wonder why. Lack of action is one way not to do it.

Learn how to love losing like I do. You know why I’m not scared of testing? Because I don’t fear the loss. I don’t fear people laughing at me. Go ahead, laugh at me. People are scared. People are scared of trying new things. People are students. You’re a student. All you want to do is read and consume and ponder, make pretend and talk about how you’re gonna. Go do it.

You can only read so much. You have to do.

I want legacy. I want you to show up to my funeral because you watched a Facebook livestream when I was in San Diego and I ranted and I finally kicked your ass into gear and you realized no more reading, no more consuming, time to do. Try to put your fears into action. Great. You go over 70. I love when people don’t hire us. You’re moving, you’re constantly moving. That’s how you have to do it. You can’t just think and ponder and read Medium, read one more book, and order 10 more Udemy courses, and go to four more conferences.

Clearly you’re fired up now. Gary wants you to get moving, and I want you to get moving too.

Here’s the good news. You are not the same person you were in January. Whatever happened between January and now, that’s behind you. You did whatever you did in January and you’ve done whatever you did to get to this point, and that is gone. Now it’s really about what are you going to do between now and the end of the year.

The good news is you’re not going to be the same person at the end of the year that you are right now. One reason is because you’re going to work hard. You’re going to remember 107 from the Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast and you’re going to say, “Wow, that’s the thing that really got me going at the end of 2016. That was the tipping point, that’s what turned everything around.” That’s what I want for you.

November and December, as they come up, are a perfect time to invest heavily in your business. The rest of the world is going to be slowing down. They’re going to be focused on the holidays, they’re going to be distracted. It’s a great time for you to get a leg up while everybody else is getting distracted by the holidays and shopping for Christmas gifts.

I know you need to do that stuff too, but take advantage of the fact that there are a lot of people out there that have already given up on the year and are focused on 2017 or that are focused on other stuff away from their business. You can really make some progress versus those people from now until the end of the year.

Drop me a line at [email protected] and let me know what you’re going to do between now and the end of the year. I’d love to hear from you. Send me a note and tell me what you plan to accomplish by the end of the year. I’ll check in with you a couple of times, just like I promised last week with the weekly stuff, to see how you’re doing between now and the end of the year.

I want you to totally crush it, to borrow another idea from Gary Vaynerchuck. I want you to totally crush it between now and the end of the year. I know you can. Go get it.

That wraps it up for this week. I really want you guys to email me at [email protected] and let me know what’s going on. Tell me what your struggles are and what’s going well for you. I love to hear from you guys, so bring it on and let me hear it.

I really think it’s time that we move forward with the niche site, so next week what I want to talk about is how to select a domain name. We’re going to talk about that again, we’ve talked about it before. This time we are going to choose the domain name for the Late Night Niche Site.

It’s going to have something to do with baseball, because remember we’ve decided that the thing that I care about is baseball and youth baseball particularly passes the tests. In fact, from the beginning of the episode now you know we can write an article about how to keep teams motivated when they’re losing. That’s something that a coach might be searching for online. We’re probably not going to sell anything with that article, but we’re going to create valuable content that will help some little league coach.

We need a domain that will hold that and reviews of gloves and baseball bats and maybe some coaching courses in the future, and all kinds of stuff. We’re going to brainstorm that domain name and pick it live on the air. Full disclosure; I’ll probably do that work ahead of time to make sure that I don’t have a 75 hour episode looking for the right domain name, but I’m going to fake it so you can see what that would really look like if you were doing it. We’ll do that here on the Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast next week.